Ask Dr. Forgiveness

How can families persevere in practicing forgiveness? My worry within my own family is that as I introduce the idea of forgiveness, people may get initially excited and then it just fades away.

Perseverance in the practice of forgiveness takes a strong will.  Do you have that strong will to quietly and gently and without force keep the message alive that you value forgiveness and would like it to be a part of your family?  As an analogy, starting a fitness program is good, but continuing with it is even better.  How do people continue?  They establish routines; they enjoy the kind of exercise that they do; they create an expectation for themselves to continue.  The same can occur with becoming forgivingly fit.

For additional information, see:  Learning to Forgive Others.

Can we apply the forgiveness process onto oneself? Is there such a thing as self-forgiveness?

It seems to me that if we can apply moral virtues such as love toward ourselves, then we should be able to apply forgiveness toward ourselves. After all, to forgive on its highest level is to unconditionally love (in the sense of the Greek term, agape) those who have been unjust to us. To forgive the self is to unconditionally offer love to the self when one has broken one’s own standards. A significant difference between forgiving others and forgiving the self is this: When we forgive ourselves, we usually hurt other people by our actions; as we forgive ourselves, we should go to those whom we have hurt and seek forgiveness from them. I discuss the theme of self-forgiveness in the following essay on the Psychology Today website (click the link below):

The Cure for Self Loathing? Self-Forgiveness

If I forgive, will all of the pain in my heart be gone?

The science of forgiveness suggests that the pain becomes considerably more bearable upon forgiving people for serious injustices. As the late Lewis Smedes used to say, forgiveness is for imperfect people. Thus, we do not necessarily get rid of all anger or all sadness upon forgiving. Yet, as I have heard from one person, “Anger used to control me, but now I am in control of my anger.” Forgiveness is what led to this triumph.

For additional information, see Forgiveness Defined.

What is the appeal of anger that it can become a habit, almost an addiction? Can suppressed or passive anger become like that, too?

I think the appeal is the adrenaline rush, the feeling of being wide awake and in control, the feeling that others will not take advantage of me.  All of this is reasonable if it is within reasonable bounds.  By that I mean that the anger is not controlling you, which can happen as people fly out of control with a temper that then is hard to manage.

A habit of anger, when intense, is hard to break, but it can be done with a strong will, the practice of forgiveness, and an awareness of how the anger-habit has compromised one’s life.  Passive anger can be habit-forming as well and that is a more difficult habit to break if the person is unaware of it.  Insights of unhappiness or of reduced energy can be clues to people that they are harboring passive anger in need of healing.

Forgiving others for injustices that have fostered this kind of anger is an important step in curing the anger.

Learn more at What is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is hard for me. Is it all right to start and stop the process of forgiveness?

Yes, it is all right to start and stop the forgiveness process if you feel that you need a rest from the challenges of forgiving.  As an analogy, if we want to be physically fit, we do not work at that fitness 10 hours a day every day.  We need to be more temperate than that.  So, working on forgiveness for an hour or less some of the days of a week seems reasonable to me.  Taking a week off is fine.  I was asked by a person if she could take a year off of the forgiveness process.  This, to me, would be similar to taking off a year of physical fitness training.  One likely would get out of shape waiting that long.  One probably would get out of forgiveness-fitness shape as well waiting for a year.

For additional information, see The Four Phases of Forgiveness.